This invention relates generally to social networking systems, and in particular to the detection and remediation of imposter accounts in a social networking system.
Social networking systems allow users to create accounts that are tied to their identities. The users may be individuals or entities such as corporations or charities. Using their user accounts, users connect to other social networking system users and share information with other social networking system users. However, a user may create an account duplicating an account of another user (an “impostor account’) to impersonate another person or entity. The impostor account may be used to provide the appearance that the duplicated user endorses or provides content or for another purpose.
Conventionally, social networking systems manually review imposter accounts based on users reporting imposter accounts. Such a manual review process may require significant human resources and depends on users to identify and report impostor accounts. In recent years, the number of reported impostor accounts has made the management of these reports an overwhelming task.
More recently, account management processes have reduced the amount of human resources used when an imposter account is reported. These account management processes use algorithms to help automate determination of the likelihood that an account is fraudulent. However, conventional processes still require users to report imposter accounts before remedial action is taken. Hence, if a user does not realize an account is an imposter account, no remedial action is taken regarding the imposter account.